Page 720 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - USA

718  ALASK A & HA W AI ‘ I

ALASKA

For most visitors, familiar images of Alaska include pristine waterways, towering
snowcapped peaks, glaciers calving to form icebergs, and massive grizzly bears
feasting on salmon. All this and much more can still be found here on North
America’s “Last Frontier,” where less than one percent of the state’s 375 million acres
(150 million ha) shows any sign of human habitation.

Situated at the top of the North American History
continent and separated from the rest of Alaska’s southeast corner is 500 miles
the country by Canada, Alaska is more (805 km) from the rest of the US, but
than twice the size of Texas, the next its farthest reaches a mere 50 miles
largest state. Alaska can be divided (80 km) from Russia. As a result, the
into three regions, both state’s history reflects its role as a
geographically and for the purpose bridge and buffer between these
of travel. Southeast Alaska, commonly two powerful nations. Human history
called the Inside Passage, is a long, here goes back much farther, since
narrow stretch of islands and Alaska was the point of entry for
channels sandwiched between the some of the first people to set foot
Pacific Ocean and Canada’s Coast Russian doll on sale in North America, when they
Mountains. Picture-postcard coastal in Juneau crossed a land bridge over the
towns, including the state capital Bering Strait 13,000 to 30,000 years
Juneau, are linked conveniently by ago. While some groups continued their
an efficient state-run ferry system. migrations southward, a few remained for
The bulk of Alaska’s landmass, however, millennia, hunting and fishing until the
lies in the continent’s extreme northwest arrival of Western Europeans. The original
corner, closer to Russia than the “Lower 48” Alaskans’ descendants today include the
states. The modern city of Anchorage is a island-dwelling Aleut, the coastal Tlingit,
good base for exploring the Kenai Peninsula the Athabascans of the interior, and the
and Denali National Park, or as a jumping- Inuits of Arctic and western Alaska.
off point for more adventurous destinations The first non-Native American
such as Kodiak Island and the Alaska settlements were outposts built by
Peninsula. To the west of the mainland, Russian fur traders in the late 18th century.
the windswept volcanic archipelago of Although their far-flung colony stretched
the Aleutian Islands stretches 1,200 miles as far south as California, it declined as
(1,932 km) west into the Bering Sea. trappers decimated once-huge

A panoramic view of North America’s highest peak, Mount McKinley in Denali National Park
Makapu’u Beach, with a view of Turtle and Rabbit Islands, O‘ahu, Hawai’i

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